Blogger Indonesia of the Week: 8 – 11

My pick this week is a Blogger Indonesia from Yogyakarta or Jogjakarta. His name as also used as his blog’s is Isnaini. He’s a professional web-designer and he did, does and is doing many web-designing project for major companies like TVRI JOGJA (state owned television), KALSEL.GO.ID (state provincial office of South Kalimantan), etc.

Fortunately, his web-designing skills is not only his job; it’s also his passion. So much so, that he’s make so many templates/skins for bloggers who intend to make a blog in blogger.com/blogspot.com or top domain blog. So many blogger templates he creates passionately, that sometimes he can create more than one design in a day. and more fortunate for us that all his blog template creations are distributed for free for all of us to use.

his template art mainly influenced by javanese culture like Wayang (puppet) which is still famously prevail in central java, a region where he resides.

As far as I know, he used to blogs in Bahasa Indonesia. but he seems to change his mind, and now he blogs in English, which is good for broader audience and to introduce and promote the art of web-designing skill which is typically Indonesian to the world. I’d like to recommend him, in case he doesnt know yet, to sign-up in Blogskins where he can directly promote all his blog-template creations to more focus audience: the community of template creators. Finally, I wish him a best of luck and more prolifics and appreciations of his works in years to come.

NOTE: If you’re an Indonesian and blog in English, or have a friend or friends with such criteria, please let me know

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (9): Nadirsyah Hosen

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (9): Nadirsyah HosenWhen I started to be actively updating my blog on daily basis few months back, I start complaining about blogger Indonesia. I wrote a brief note about the facts that not many indonesian intellectuals are eager to have a blog; to share their precious thought with other bloggers around the world; and to blog in English. Rather, they tend to discuss things in mailing list with their counterparts.

Now, I’ve found some heavy-weight Indonesian intellectuals (still not so many, though) start having and archiving their sophisticated thought in their blogs and ofcourse, in English. one of those is my close friend (virtual-wise) Dr. Nadirsyah Hosen. from his surename, you will know that he’s the favorite son of Prof. Dr. KH. Ibrahim Hosen, rector, founder of IIQ (institut ilmu al-quran – quranic science institute) based in Jakarta formerly PTIQ (perguruan tinggi ilmu al-quran)and former directorial board of MUI (indonesia ulama council)

He’s not only a person with so many degrees (two Masters of Art & Honors and Master of laws and comparative law and two Ph.ds in Islamic studies and Law and now is pursuing post-doctoral in Quensland, Australia and a lecturer at the same university); but also a person with prolific hi-fi writings: a rarity from indonesian intelligentsia point of view.

His heavy-weight writings in many international journals makes him stands out among the rest. not many indonesian intellectuals write so prolifically in global recognized and established journals like he does. and because of the rare phenomenon in indonesia, you need only one piece of writing appeared in world journal plus one Ph.D degree in order to make you alleviated into Professor in one of indonesian state universities. Nadirsyah got many of those!

Writing a piece in a journal is not an easy task. It needs a painstaking effort, passion and tenacity: you need to do a good research in order to be able to have an in-depth analysis on the subject. Unlike writing column in newspapers or magazines which only need between 700 to 1000 words and can be done within a span of hours, in journal you need to write around 7,000 words with many quotation from many sources. Therefore, journal is the highest form of writing. Yet, the journal piece and its writer got less appreciation than it should duly deserve.

Therefore, it’s appropriate to say to Nadir, that publishing and popularizing journal kind of writing in his blog which has appeared in international journals will be one step in the right direction to introduce it to the broader audience. I know, many journal publishers has certain conditions and a bit fussy about copyright and redistribution and if it’s the case, at least we can enjoy the excerpts of his published journals.

Journal is not very popular in Indonesia for many reasons: the lack of reading habit of Indonesians; their fun-loving attitudes and the expensiveness of print materials all contribute to the un-conducive environment. the emergence of an Indonesian journal writer in the community of blogger indonesia like him should be highly welcomed and appreciated.

I wish, the other indonesian intellectuals with the same calibre like him will follow suit to make Blogger Indonesia more colourful; accounted for by outside world and become the main source of outside world whenever they need the precise and more unbiased unformation on anything to do with Indonesia.

I think, you dont need more introduction from me about him. Once you visit his blog, you’ll be wiser to make your own judgement yourself.

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (10): Joko Anwar

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (10): Joko AnwarJoko Anwar, based on his profile and blog stories, is a free-lance writer and film director. Considering his age, he can be considered as a young talented-ambitious-energetic film director. I dont know whether he ever stays abroad or not. but it’s obvious that he speaks english eloquently. if he’s never stayed abroad, he must have a good education and must be from an educated upbringing.

From his name (joko), it’s clear that he’s a javanese. And assuming that the surename (anwar, which in arabic means ‘light’) is his father’s name, he must be from the santri’s (traditional muslim) background. yet, like most javanese muslim, he prefers to be a “liberal muslim” a term that used to be called “abangan” stands for ‘a javanese muslim who doesnt care much about his/her religion as a way of life. liberal muslim or abangan muslim, if you like, is not a derogatory term among javanese people or indonesian point of view; it even means a real moderation from the western standpoint. abangan or liberal muslim, who drinks sometimes and hardly observe prayer represent a large majority of javanese.

i need to talk about his background by no means i have any intention to discuss his very personal life–by the way i dont know him nor have i met him–but it needs to be known by non-indonesian who reads his blog that through his personal writing, you can learn something; a voice of a large majority, i.e. javanese, of indonesian people on how they see life, socially and culturally. and how they see the current and much hype event like the relations between islam and the west i.e. they just dont care! :)

it also needs to note, that person like Joko Anwar is so many. yet, many westerners who stays in Jakarta and closely mingle with many persons like Joko still afraid of the tiny militants like FPI is doing. See for example blogger like indcoup and jakartass, both are londoners stay in jakarta who makes enough ‘noise’ in their blog about the current church closure in western java as a very dangerous phenomenon (I promise to indcoup that i’ll write about it in my blog later…). bear in mind, that a group like FPI needs to be dealt with; but not to be afraid of. sane people still can overwhelm the tiny insane!

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (11): Mementoes

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (11): MementoesMementoes: Travel Notes, Concert Reports, Daily Crap is the title of her blog. She stays and works in UK, after finishing her study there. As she put it as an introduction in her blog, “Despises being far from her family but hates the idea of having to go back someday,” she looks like in a dilemma–between staying as an expat in a foreign country which promises her a good salary and going back home with family with no certain future and job–a typically shared feelings among Indonesian students abroad.

Since Suharto era up there’s still no radical change even in the reformasi era today, what you need to get a good job in government office is not how skillful and talented you are. the job opportuniy –as far gov. office goes– more often than not is not about skill, degree and professionalism; it’s about what link with high ranking government officials you have. the higher the beaurocrat you know, the better. and that’s exactly why Mementoes and many other skillful students have in mind when they have a strong desire to go back home.

On the other hand, staying in a developed country like UK or any other white dominated countries is not as you expect it to be. there’re some discriminations against you one way or the other. the Asians: the colored, yellow, brown plus black are not so welcome faces in the west. the discrimination could range from the social-status (the rich & poor); the race (white & colored); the countries (advanced & developing) and the figure (tall & short; blonde & black hair, etc.).

Mementoes know much deeper what i’m talking about as she experienced herself how hard and painful being a human who’s discriminated against by other humans; especially when the symbol of discrimination and insult come in the form of phisical attack. the pain will go down right into the deepest part of your heart! just read her blog, and you’re gonna sense the pain yourself..

I hope im not regarded exaggerated if i say that as far as racism is concerned Indonesian people (the mass, the grass-root) generally are the most friendly and nicest human beings. i’ve travelled anywhere in the country, and as i’ve got bright complexion, many people around the country i met thought that I’m a chinese origin guy. yet, i never heard any insult, discrimination nor anything like that from any people i met. You cannot expect that nice treatment from even a country like India where casteism still prevails, although the insult so far is not getting phisical.

last but not least, her blog needs to be visited not only by Indonesian fellows, but more importantly by the western guys, who’re in their blogs tends to behave like a pharaoh and see things outside them from an ivory tower ready to teach and criticise manything done by the eastern guys with holier-than-thou kinda attitude. tolerance, pluralism, understanding; fanaticism, racism and discrimination are not only owned by the west nor the east. good and evil are made by human. any dialogue and debate on any issue of humanity should begin from this point: the point of equality and mutual respect. many western guys forget this very basic tenet of universal values.